Rancid S/T
"The memories were so fresh. When I wrote the record, I didn't know if I was going to make it. I didn't know what was going to happen, I didn't know anything. That was way before Offspring took off and Epitaph Records wasn't even that big. I just wanted to make that record because that was how I felt. I was being really honest--but all of our records are like that. I won't have it any other way." -Tim
"About a girl that's fucked up. She's a good girl though." - Tim
"This is a true story, when I had no fuckin home" - Tim
About Tim's daily routine at everywhere he lived: About drinking, police harrasment, riding the bus 'til he got arrested, and the occasssional girl to help keep him going. - Ryan
Cover of an Uptones song
About the street Lars grew up on in Campbell. About growing up and feeling alienated and nihilistic. Tim's favourite song -RadioHVN
When Tim was drinking & poor, music was the only thing he had. - Funky
Jane
Co-written by Billie Joe Armstrong of Greenday.
Salvation
About Armstrong's experiences at the Salvation Army, where he exchanged a bed for driving around the burbs, picking up the well-to-do's cast-offs. -RadioHVN
About junkies and hookers -RadioHVN
A song about the state of brothership and unity. - Funky Jane
About a union strike/riot in San Francisco in 1934. Harry Bridges led the strike on July 1, and it lasted untill July 5 (Bloody Thursday). - Vicki Vicious
It's probably a personal song about someone Lars knew from his hometown since it's the only song Lars co-wrote on Let's Go & he sings it all by himself. - Sarah
About a Catholic girl named Mary. - Aarti
About Tim's routine of going to a detox facility 5 times. - Aarti
7 Years Down is about times at the salvation army shelter. - Vicki Vicious
About a drug dealer named Max that Tim saw when he was looking out the window. - Andrι Le Comte & Fenster
The intro is a sample from the movie "Gringo" -RadioHVN
11th Hour
Co-written by the Uptones' Eric Dinn -RadioHVN
1st verse - About Lars' bus ride from Campbell to Berkeley. 2nd verse - About Tim's trip south from Albany, Ca. - Aarti
A snazzy-dressing friend who used to save Tim from detox. - Aarti
Featuring the Uptones and Shakin' 69-er Paul Jackson on organ -RadioHVN
"This is not an Op Ivy song but it's a similar style" -Tim
Something about Tim's relation with a chick from Bikini Kill. - Funky Jane
Junkie Man
About the chilling look at addiction -RadioHVN
About West Oakland - [email protected]
About Matt & his ex-girlfriend Kathy who were together for 5 years. He says it was tragic. Lars & Tim wrote it and Matt didn't even know it was about him until the Europe tour. He didn't believe it until Tim and Lars both swore to him it was. - Vicki Vicious
Daly City Train is about some drugy hanging out at a train station - Nelson Bonilla
Featuring the Uptones and Shakin' 69-er Paul Jackson on organ -RadioHVN
Journey To The End Of The East Bay
About Op Ivy's demise -RadioHVN
About Tim keeping warm by going into a club and dancing all night, mostly with girls he never got to know - Ryan (Also see "Do You Want To Dance With Me?") - Funky Jane
About Tim's alcoholism. - Nelson Bonilla
Featuring the Uptones and Shakin' 69-er Paul Jackson on organ -RadioHVN
Either about record company men trying to sign Rancid to a major label or something about corperations (i.e. insurances) cheating people. - Funky Jane
As Wicked
About the misery of homelessness -RadioHVN
True story about racial harmony. - Fenster
"A unity song about blacks and whites gone together" - Rancid
About Tim's alcoholism. - Nelson Bonilla
Life Won't Wait
"The boys would come in and Tim would say 'I've got this new song. Here's the bridge. Okay, let's cut it.' Everything was in one or two takes. We were just poppin' 'em out. Boom boom boom." - Matt
"The whole record was about a vibe and we've been fans of Jamaican music since I can remember. Dancehall is like punk rock of Jamaica. I think it was a natural thing for us to do. It would be really easy for us to lock ourselves into a studio for a month and bang out another record but we really wanted to take our time. Most of the songs in our new record are one or two takes, a lot of scratch like guitars, more scratch vocals because it had vibe... it had the thing that we wanted." -Lars
A cuss word used in Jamaica. - Andrι Le Comte
About cocaine. - Andrι Le Comte
Dedicated to Tim's father who was a blue-collar worker all his life, working his ass off. - Sarah
About "dark-as-dungeons coal mines" and working-class Appalachian coal miners who breath coal-dust-powdered air. - Aarti
Life Won't Wait
Made in Jamaica with Buju Banton -RadioHVN
About European apathy over Bosnian atrocities. - Vicki Vicious
About world scale class struggle & out-and-out warfare, the latter drawing parallels between a working class girl struggling to stretch her budget & children fighting to survive in the former Yugoslavia. - [email protected]
About the communist martial-law crackdown against the Solidarity labor movement in Poland, 1981. - AK
About how the US tried to teach the Poles baseball, but the kids took the shipments of Louisville Sluggers and smashed everything in sight. - CMJ (September issue.)
Hooligans is about racial problems between rudies and skins in other countries. - Vicki Vicious
About punks getting hassled in England's Leicester Square. - Aarti
A true story of a friend attempting to rise above his gangster past. - [email protected]
About how Tim got back into drugs and drinking again when he moved to LA after the ...And Out Come the Wolves tour. - Vicki Vicious
About Tim's recent marriage to Brody. - Sarah
About New York's Avenue C. - Funky Jane
"...Howie Pyro... used to hang out with Sid Vicious. And it's... like, the punk scene is just as relevant now as it was then. Those old fucking guys who go, 'I remember when this was punk and it was dangerous, this and that, '... listening to Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and all that shit. I mean, that's great music too, but not giving any respect to the new bands. Who's to say what happened twenty years ago -- the bands or whoever, Black Flag, the Ramones -- couldn't mean the same thing as maybe Pennywise, or NOFX or Rancid mean to somebody now?" - Lars
"I don't think it's any big secret that the country we live in sucks in a lot of ways. It's also a great country in a lot of respects, but it seems like the promises you're made as a citizen -- like Freedom of Speech -- they're violated every fucking day. I don't think that's really hard to see. I think a lot of people know where we stand politically. Anarchistic, socialistic, communistic, whatever it is. I think people know, it's not hard to figure out." - Lars
About US' imperialistic influence on Latin American countries. - Anonymous
About injustices ranging from jailing innocents to flying the Confederate flag. - Aarti
About unfair treatment of Blacks & Hispanics by police & courts of law. - Anonymous
About all the places they've been when recording for "Life Won't Wait". - Sarah
B-sides & compilation tracks
A cover of a Blitz song. - Funky Jane
There were riots in Brixton in April 1981, and it might parallel to the one that happened in Oakland. - Chloe
About a brothel (whore house) and a pimp named Willy. - Aarti
The lead singer of F-Minus, a band signed to Hellcat Records, is Brad Logan. - Funky Jane
Cover of The Clash song. - Funky Jane
A cover of a Jimmy Cliff song. - Funky Jane
Just what it asks, what do you do when you're blacklisted? Nothing much to say about this one. - Funky Jane
A Sham 69 cover - Funky Jane
A song in Ten Years Later also called "Sick of It All" - Funky Jane